Kuku, TNC & The Chongqing Major Recital

The Chongqing Major has been the home to the largest controversy in DotA 2 in 2018. Carlo “Kuku” Palad, a DotA 2 player from TNC Predator, was banned from attending an upcoming tournament after he made racist comments against the Chinese team during a public game.

Palad was accused of typing the phrase “ching chong,” usually used derisively to mimic the Chinese language. Palad did so in a public game with Chinese players in November 2018. However, his team TNC refused to bar him from participating despite outrage from Chinese stakeholders.

DotA 2 developer Valve announced in a statement that it was banning Palad from participating in the upcoming Chongqing Major DotA 2 tournament in China in January 2019.

“TNC has mishandled the situation on multiple occasions, making the situation much worse than it needed to be,” the company said in its statement.